Reading Through the Bible - The 10 Shortest Books in the Bible

We are looking at the 10 Shortest books in the Bible.

You might be surprised at what they actually are.

There are 3 ways of deciding on the sizes of Bible books.

Number of Chapters.

Number of Verses.

Number of Words.

You can see a chart comparing these in my Reading Plan by Order of Size of Books

OR - if time is more important to you Number of minutes, hours & days

Here are the

 10 shortest books of the Bible by Number of Chapters

The First 5 each only contain 1 chapter.

None of the other 5 books are more than 3 chapters long.

1. Second John (1 chapter)
2. Third John (1 chapter)
3. Jude (1 chapter)
4. Obadiah (1 chapter)
5. Philemon (1 chapter)
6. Haggai (2 chapters)
7. Habakkuk (3 chapters)
8. Nahum (3 chapters)
9. Titus (3 chapters)
10. Zephaniah (3 chapters)

Note: In my Reading Plan I have combined   1,2 & 3 John,  1 & 2 Peter,  1 & 2 Timothy,  1 & 2 Thessalonians, 1 & 2 Corinthians and  as it seemed more logical to me to read these letters to the same churches consecutively as well as the 1st & 2nd books in the Old Testament because they logically & historically followed on from each other.

Here are the

 10 shortest books of the Bible by Number of Verses

The First 5 each only contain 1 chapter.

Only one of the other 5 books are more than 3 chapters long.

1. Second John (13 verses)
2. Third John (14 verses)
3. Obadiah (21 verses)
4. Philemon (25 verses)
5. Jude (25 verses)
6. Haggai (38 verses)   2
7. Titus (46 verses    3
8. Nahum (47 verses)   3
9. Jonah (48 verses)    4
10. Zephaniah (53 verses)   3

Here are the

 10 shortest books of the Bible by Number of Words

The First 5 are each only contain 1 chapter.

None of the other 5 books are more than 3 chapters long.

1. Third John (219 words)
2. Second John (245 words)
3. Philemon (430 words)
4. Jude (608 words)
5. Obadiah (669 words)
6. Titus (896 words)
7. Haggai (1130 words)
8. Nahum (1284 words)
9. Jonah (1320 words)
10. Habakkuk (1475 words)

If TIME is more important to you

Number of Minutes, Hours, Days can be considered.

Of course then it would have to be the number of words to calculate from because people have worked out how long it takes to read a certain number of words and hence from that how long it takes to read the various books of the Bible.

For Example in:

30 mins  you could read the book of Ecclesiastes.

1 hour & 30 mins  you could read the Gospel of Mark.

5 hours  you could read the Book of Psalms.

10 hours  you could read the 4 Gospels and the Book of Acts

This is all to do with reading the Bible.

If you would like to start in the whole bible then why not try my Plan

 Reading Through the Bible from Shortest to Longest Book 

Studying and memorizing of course will take longer.

If you are interested in studying you may find these  Devotionals  

and  Bible Studies  helpful 

or 

if you are thinking of trying to memorize more of the Bible then try our page on Memorizing Scripture  to get help and advice (we even have videos of songs there).

OTHER POSTS ABOUT THE BIBLE & BOOKS OF THE BIBLE ARE ADDED REGULARLY AND AN UPDATED LIST CAN BE FOUND AT OUR

 READING THE BIBLE PAGE 

Reading Through The Bible - TITUS

Some Books of the bible are very short and some are very long but this one is one of the shortest.

TITUS  -  NEW TESTAMENT  -  EPISTLE

17th book of the NT 

56th book of the Bible

It starts with a greeting of blessing in ch.1 v 4

I love the blessings pronounced in God's Word and they are still blessings to us as well.

What is it?

The Book of Titus is one of the Epistles in the New Testament which means it is a Letter.

How Long is it?

It has 3 chapters.

When was it Written?

It is generally thought to have been written between 62 to 64 AD

Who Wrote it?

The Apostle PAUL

It is one of his several letters to people and churches included in the New Testament.

It laid out teaching about Jesus 

 

and advice for all Christians 

going on to explain that salvation is not obtained by us but is given through God's mercy

 

Who was it Written to?

It was written to Titus as we see in chapter 1 v 4 

 "To Titus, a true son in our common faith:"

Titus was a younger man known and respected by the Apostle Paul and given responsibility for leading the church at Crete.

Why was it Written? 

It was written as instruction to Titus as he lead the church at Crete

The Overview Bible  tells us the following

"Paul advises Titus on how to lead orderly, counter-cultural churches on the island of Crete."

and

Teach Sunday School  tells us the following

"Titus was a young pastor being put in charge of the churches at Crete.  Paul wrote to encourage him and addressed some of the same problems with leading a church as he addressed with Timothy, his young disciple."

How does it end?

With a reminder of the Hope all Christians have

and

with greetings to Titus from others with Paul, and to others in Crete and a short blessing in

 chapter 3 v 15

   " All who are with me greet you. Greet those who love us in the faith.

Grace be with you all. Amen."

OTHER BOOKS OF THE BIBLE ARE ADDED REGULARLY AND AN UPDATED LIST CAN BE FOUND AT OUR READING THE BIBLE PAGE 

A Fountain Display - A Dose of Encouragement

20 years ago our family went to a Fountain and Fireworks display one night in Pennsylvania and just oohed and aahed in amazement as the water gushed up in time to the music and the fireworks and special lights sent colours through the spray.

Everyone gazed fixedly at the fountains and fireworks and none of us wanted to take our eyes off them for a minute because of the beauty we beheld.

I have always been attracted to fountains and have previously written in this blog about some Unusual Fountains and also about my favourite one in Belgium, the Tervuren Fountain  but I have never forgotten that lovely night and the beauty of God's creation of water with man's creation of music.

Have you ever seen lots of little fountains in your church?  

No I'm not mad and seeing water spouting all over our church; but one Sunday during some quiet worship time I did have a picture in my mind of tall narrow fountains scattered around our congregation.  

They were in the place of various people and I felt God was telling me that there were people in our church who were like His fountains. 

So what is a fountain?  

Well it contains water, it moves water around and it spurts water up in the air. 

Fountains are always a centre of attraction and are considered to be beautiful features.

They give a sense of excitement as the water wells up and the feeling of continual renewing as the water is caught up time and time again.

Can we be like fountains? 

As Christians we have been washed clean by the blood of Jesus and have received His righteousness.

We have the Holy Spirit in our lives stirring us up to share God's love . 

We are the showcase of the beauty and grace of God's love to the world.

God wants us to be excited by our Salvation so that we cannot help but testify of this to others.

We can be renewed by the Spirit daily. 

Are you like a fountain?

Yes - We can be like fountains.  

The difference between us and the fountain display we watched all those years ago 

is that through us people should be led to 

ooh and aah 

not at us

but
at the true fountain of life
our Saviour Jesus Christ
and

at the beauty of the Gospel 

We should lead others to ooh and aah at the true beauty

Titus 3: 3-7

3 For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, 

serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, 

and hating one another.   

4 But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared,

5 Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;

6 Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour;

7 That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

Why We Worship 19

I am taking time each week to ask myself "Why we worship"

Do you know that God loves to give us what we don't deserve?

•  He loves to pardon our sin.
•  He loves to be good to us.
•  He loves to give us His Gifts.
•  He loves to extend His Mercy to us.

And really we don't deserve any of this.

This is all because 

What does this mean?



It simply means that :

• Jesus the Son of God took our place.
• Jesus the Son of God bore our punishment.
• Jesus the Son of God gave His life for us.

And He did it for our benefit not His.

No wonder we sing and talk about God's Grace being AMAZING.

Of course the verse above is not actually a full sentence.

So let's look at the full sentence here in verses 11 - 14.

11 For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men,

12 teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, 

13 looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ, 

14 who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.

Because of the Grace God has shown us we then need to react by turning from our ungodly ways to God's Way and look forward to seeing Jesus who has made this all possible.  

We are to be His own special people and ready to do good just as He does.

I am very thankful for God's Grace  -  aren't you?